http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/water-of-leith-flood-works-over-engineered-1-3360141
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Water of Leith flood works ‘over-engineered’ "
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Posted 11 years ago #
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Doesn't look that over engineered in the picture, looks like a bit more rain and the river would be over the wall.
The wall at canonmills, near the B and Q is very high but river has gone over previous walls with ease.
At the top end the reservoirs above Balerno are very full.
Posted 11 years ago # -
And we are supposed to believe they have only just noticed?
Another April Fool story? ::-(
Posted 11 years ago # -
A damning report
Not sure this is best way to go.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm still trying to get my head around how narrowing the river doesn't just back up the problems some place else.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The chief idiocy here is that we pay £30,000,000 for flood barriers, and €450 per annum per hectare to keep the Pentlands free of the trees that would prevent or mitigate the flooding in the first place.
If trees were planted, the hills would no longer count as farmland and would lose the CAP 'special mountain payments'.
So we get hills scalped bare by blackface sheep and the cost of building concrete walls.
Posted 11 years ago # -
A damning report
Not sure this is best way to go.
Now you've gone and opened the floodgates to a deluge of watery puns...
Posted 11 years ago # -
Narrowing > faster flow > less deposition > retention of flow-capacity at the narrow bit, so it shifts the problem downstream rather than upstream?
Posted 11 years ago # -
"If trees were planted, the hills would no longer count as farmland and would lose the CAP 'special mountain payments'."
Mmm that sounds joined-up.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"A damning report"
Could have been worse. Could have been a watershed report. Still, weir above that kind of thing, aren't we? Don't want a race to the bottom. Or too much levee-ty.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The reservoirs in the Pentlands (particularly Threipmuir) are now being kept permanently high, regardless of rainfall - I've discussed this with some of the Pentland Rangers, and they're a tad peeved as the bird hide (I cycle to this fairly regularly) is now not much use for woodland birds (you'd need serious waders to get to the bird tables and feeders)
EDIT: this is the opposite extreme http://binged.it/1henhmN but you can see the usual shoreline as it used to be infront of the hide. I do like that it shows the original C19 course of the Bavelaw burn, and ghosts of the windbreak treelines.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"I'm still trying to get my head around how narrowing the river doesn't just back up the problems some place else."
"Narrowing > faster flow > less deposition > retention of flow-capacity at the narrow bit, so it shifts the problem downstream rather than upstream?"
The problem with flood prevention - notably on the WoL - is 'conflicts of interest' and maintenance.
Clearly too many bits of the flood plain have been built on to adequately manage the 'peak water' events.
I'm sure no-one thinks the Stockbridge Colonies should be demolished.
When it was flooded in 2000(?) it's because a wall collapsed. A wall also collapsed at Bonnington - there was a LOT of water.
I think there was a suggestion that the dams at Balerno didn't have their water levels reduced enough - though with 'no trees run-off' that's probably easier said than done.
The recent flooding at Stockbridge was because of the flood prevention work - the contractor was rebuilding a wall but hadn't allowed for an 'interim' flood (and I think had gone away for the weekend).
After the 2000 flood, willows were removed at Fords Road and the river was supposed to be dredged. That never happened and the trees have grown back, so there doesn't even seem to 'an agreed way to deal with the problem'.
Bit like the Somerset Levels.
Posted 11 years ago # -
you'd need serious waders
like flamingos?
Posted 11 years ago # -
So we get hills scalped bare by blackface sheep and the cost of building concrete walls.
Been on the Monbiot again, IWRATS? ;-)
Not sure how the CPAS works, but at what point do a few trees become "no longer farmland"? Could you plant a number of bands of trees to alleviate things a bit?
Also, I get the sheep stop seedling trees from growing bit, but is there anything to stop young trees being planted and allowing the sheep to graze around them? or is it the lack of sylvan undergrowth that's the issue?
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm Heron you but surely no-one who has every spent a stint stork-ing a pink bird would call it serious.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@PS Yes indeed;
http://www.monbiot.com/2014/01/13/drowning-in-money/
Incredible stuff. Farmers and builders payed to cause and solve the same problem.
Posted 11 years ago # -
There was a plan to grow a "Millenium Forest" on the Pentlands (ISTR a figure of 500,000 - 1M trees), but that came to naught.
There are ways of preventing the attentions of sheep and deer (above Bruar they've built a humongously long fence to protect the forest extension, you can use those wee biodegradable cylinders that split off after the trees have grown), but that adds costs.
And €450 is €450
(No pink flamingoes, lovely though that would be, but a huge flock of pink-footed geese...)
Posted 11 years ago # -
After the 2000 flood, willows were removed at Fords Road and the river was supposed to be dredged. That never happened and the trees have grown back, so there doesn't even seem to 'an agreed way to deal with the problem'.
Amusingly (not for those flooded, but for those prone to bouts of schadenfreude), the water became stuck behind the flood wall, with no way to get back out and into the river, needing to be pumped out.Not sure how the CPAS works, but at what point do a few trees become "no longer farmland"? Could you plant a number of bands of trees to alleviate things a bit?
I'm pretty sure I read some number on one of those BBC "about the flooding" articles that forest cover reduced runoff and improved groundwater retention by a factor in the hundreds (if not a 1000?)
Posted 11 years ago # -
"There are ways of preventing the attentions of sheep and deer"
The solution for the deer is obvious; a pack of wolves.
As for the sheep, if they can sell pheasant shooting at £1,000 a day, surely sheep stalking would get at least £2,000?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Posted 11 years ago #
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friends of the pentlands have been planting many juniper bushes on the path up to The Black Springs (I always say Black Springs in my pirate voice). I think these bushes may have been there in Roman times. (BTW these are two large clues to the as yet unguessed Serious Ac-tor pub quiz question). All in tubes to protect from sheep. Other little deciduous trees cling on in the valleys. On the actual hills my guess is some pine forests would be Ok?
Posted 11 years ago # -
"On the actual hills my guess is some pine forests would be Ok?"
Scots Pine, birch, alder, rowan, willow and oak are the 'native' hill species if we're going to get UKIP about it. The tree line in Scotland is about 500m, so the whole Pentlands could, if we wanted, be covered in trees. Imagine standing on Scald Law and looking down on scrubby juniper giving way to dwarf birch and then Scots Pine.
All you have to do is put up a big fence and shoot the deer inside it. Glen Afric is a ocean-going miracle of regeneration.
Posted 11 years ago # -
All you have to do is put up a big fence and shoot the deer inside it.
That's the RSPB long-term strategy for Abernethy Forest regeneration. They don't do any planting, just deer control. The research director was optimistic of good tree Caledonian forest levels of tree cover in 4-700 years!
When I was there one of the stalkers was itching for one of the feral reindeer to come over the Cairngorms into their patch so he could bag himself one.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Caledonian forest levels of tree cover in 4-700 years!"
Lovely thought. I just hope Abernethy isn't mediterranean garrigue by then.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I know. On a day like today, how could you possibly wish for mediterranean conditions in Scotland?
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
The long awaited Selkirk flood defence scheme has been given the go-ahead after the Scottish Government agreed to help fund the scheme.
The £31m scheme is expected to protect up to 595 properties currently at risk in the Bannerfield, Philiphaugh and Riverside areas of the town.
Years in the planning, the funding boost means construction work will now begin in November, with completion expected in 2016.
"
http://www.itv.com/news/border/update/2014-04-01/selkirk-flood-prevention-scheme-gets-green-light
Posted 11 years ago #
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